2017 Mercedes-AMG SL65 review: Over the top

AMG twin-turbo V12 makes more power than many race cars

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Yes, the SL65 is completely over the top in many ways. It’s expensive, big, heavy, muy comfy and very, very powerful and fast.

None of the above is criticism. There’s a time and place for a car like this, and even though my fleet would have to be quite large before it included this car, I applaud AMG for making it.

I like the SL’s newish shape/redesign. The grille is more upright and the fenders and hood are longer and slope more steeply toward the grill – it looks sleeker. Straight on from the front the grille and large air openings look dramatic and cool. I love the chrome trim up front.

The interior is carryover (I think) but is comfortable and well built. The seats are excellent and crazy adjustable.

The engine. My god, the engine. No, nobody NEEDS a street car with more horsepower than plenty of race cars, but as I said above bless Benz for doing it. Boot the throttle from seemingly any speed and the wheels spin. Over the top indeed. There’s little-to-no turbo lag, and the shifts are imperceptible.

It’s also a comfortable around-town cruiser. There is literally no chassis flex roof up or down, and that surely helps. (I got in some top down motoring before the rains came.) The adjustable suspension helps, too, soaking up nasty surfaces nicely, carving through corners like a lighter, smaller car. You can adjust the suspension, throttle and shift timing in comfort, sport, sport-plus and slippery. One of those should make most drivers happy.

Like I said, nobody needs this car, but I have zero issues with Benz building it.

The first thing I thought when I looked at this car, and its price, was that the McLaren 570S is Porsche-911-Turbo-S money. They’re both supercars, by any stretch of the definition; they both ...

OTHER VOICES:

I'm so far outside the target market for this car I have trouble wrapping my head around it. It feels unbearably ostentatious here in southeast Michigan, though I'm sure there are some zip codes here and sprinkled throughout the U.S. where it's just a 'nice car.'

There's little to argue about with its pedigree: Hand-built AMG twin-turbo V12, impeccably constructed body and interior, all the creature comforts for which one could ask; the folding top works silently and quickly, and when it's up there's remarkably good outward visibility thanks to the dimmable glass roof, thin pillars and large rear window.

The SL65 is a luxury cruiser par excellence, making the "sport +" and "race" modes on the console almost humorous -- it's not that the car can't hunker down and explode down the right roads, it's that no one buying this Beverly Hills boulevardier will ever use its immense capabilities. Shame maybe, but perhaps being rich is more about knowing what you can do vs actually doing it.

The closest I came to understanding the SL65 AMG was when I cranked the top down, turned on the seat heaters and AirScarf neck-warmers and massagers and went out for ice cream on a cool late summer evening.

By any conceivable measure it was too much car for the task at hand.

But isn’t that always going to be the case when you’re driving a $236,925, 621-hp V12-powered roadster? Isn’t luxurious excess the point of this thing? Too much engine, too much brake, too much seat massaging, for that matter, for just for just about anything anyone who buys this car will ever do. Glorious, matte-painted silky-smooth V12 overkill: that is the SL65’s raison d’être.

There’s a freaky amount of onboard tech, which I discovered when I let the car drive me home from work. True, I had to keep my hand on the wheel (but only barely) and occasionally tap the gas when the adaptive cruise control brought the car to a dead stop in rush hour traffic, but it was one of those moments where robot driving didn’t feel quite so far off. And maybe a big, luxurious autonomous convertible wouldn’t be such a bad thing. You’d be free to take in the scenery, make business deals or whatever.

The SL65 doesn’t fundamentally bother me like the G65, because shoving a big engine into a convertible isn’t as perverse as shoehorning quilted leather and that same engine into a humble, noble work truck. In the SL65’s case, you could fairly call it hot-rodding.

It wouldn’t even seem unnecessary, if adding four extra cylinders to the SL63 created a totally different experience, rather than a slightly smoother and much more expensive one. But I’m afraid I don’t totally get the V12 Benz thing. Swells of torque aside, I think a lot of people are drawn to the big motors as signifiers of wealth -- or at least disposable income -- more than anything else.

Then again, Andy makes a valid point: I’m so far outside of the world inhabited by anyone who buys this car that my opinion on whether it makes sense doesn’t amount to much. I personally think the S-Class Cabrio is more fun; if you’re going to go big and boaty, go as big and boaty as you possibly can.

It’s a simple process: enabling drift mode on the 2018 Mercedes-AMG 4Matic E63 S, that is. First, you grab the chrome drive mode rocker switch and click it down into race, which quickens ...

This SL65 feels every bit as fast as that McLaren 570S. It’s a rocket on any road and it’s as quick at 80 mph as it is at 20 mph. It seems like it’d be comfortable at 175 mph plus.

The SL is as grand touring as it gets. In comfort mode it’s soft and floaty. Inputs take a smidge longer than when it’s in sport or sport plus but it still has the power to blow everything away. The distronic cruise control stalk is hidden behind one of the wheel spokes but I felt for it with my hand, took a shot in the dark and clicked it down and the SL basically went autonomous on me. I’m exaggerating a little bit, but it will follow the car in front at any speed you set it at and it follows the lane markings around curves too. Talk about fatigue relief, all you have to do is put a finger on the wheel to keep it engaged. It’s awesome.

I’m not the biggest convertible fan, and I’m even less of a fan of big convertibles, but I get the appeal. The huge transformer top takes about 30 seconds to fold into the trunk and that makes everything feel just a bit more thrilling. Tunnel runs, expressway ramps and cloverleaf turns all feel more exciting with the wind blowing by. I did have to make a few calls so I rolled the windows up and raised the wind blocker in the back and I could have an easy conversation without yelling.

Speaking of tunnels, AMG makes some of the best sounding engines on the planet. The old 6.3-liter V8 may have THE best sound through tunnels, but this twelver or twizzy, as the kids are calling it, will go down in the pantheon of great sounding cars. Obviously the pops and crackles on liftoff are great, they always are, but the roar is nearly as good. It sounds like a lion.

The SL65 did hiccup on me a few times when getting into the throttle and switching gears. At first I thought I hit the rev limiter, but I think it was actually just saving me from myself.

“Hey Jake, yeah it’s a V12. You’re NOT going to want to put down all 738 pounds of twist right now, kthxbye.”

Got it.

As far as the sheetmetal goes, I loved the ‘80s-looking fourth gen, which ran until 2002. I also liked the fifth gen with the two circle headlights. I didn’t like the fifth gen refresh when the twin headlights went to one amorphous blob, but the sixth gen, 2012 to present, is back on the happy side of good lookin’.

MSRP

$86,950

MPG

20 / 28

Wes Raynal
- Wes Raynal joined Crain Communications’ circulation department while still in college. When he graduated in 1986, he became a reporter for Autoweek sister publication Automotive News. He has worked as Autoweek’s associate editor, news editor, motorsports editor and executive editor before being named editor in 2009.
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